Review: MacBook Pro 13″

Lights

I only realized how beautiful this machine’s design is when I saw other laptops again. I used to find the blue (or orange and green) LED carvings in front of laptops fascinating; now I find them obnoxious. This machine does not show HD activity, but for on/off and battery status, there are some really subtle solutions.

At the front of the laptop is a light hidden behind the metal casing. It is a bright white rectangle that slowly brightens and dims whenever the laptop is asleep. It kind of makes you feel that it’s breathing in and out (or snoring, if you will).

The battery indicator is a row of eight tiny dots and a small button, positioned on the left side of the laptop. Touching the button or (dis)connecting the MagSafe connector makes them light up for a few seconds, one light standing for 12.5% of battery left. Connecting the MagSafe connector will also cause the lights to indicate that it’s charging, in the way you often see on mobile phones.

Perhaps the most impressive lights make up for the backlit keyboard. I can type blindly, so I wondered why on Earth I would ever need a feature like this. Well, imagine you’re watching a movie in the dark and you want to find the button to lower the volume, or you realize you want to do something else simultaneously and you need to switch to a different space. The brightness can be set in 16 discrete stages, though at night the first stage is sufficient and will not distract you.

The backlit screen can also be set to 16 different levels of brightness, allowing for much more contrast and vibrant colors than that of average laptops (especially when raising the gamma level, which is supported up to 2.0). Depending on the condition in which the laptop is used, the glass screen is either brilliant in its light emission, or painful and annoying. Even if you do all you can to keep it clean, dirt and dust does pile up, which becomes excruciatingly clear when light falls on it.

Let me just go into the screen issues a bit deeper. You open the laptop’s lid by just pushing it upward, but in order to exert enough thrust you just can’t avoid touching the top of the screen, leaving a row of fingerprints there. As a result, the screen needs a thorough cleaning at least once a week, requiring the machine to be turned off. The glass plate sometimes also tends to act more like a mirror for your hands and face than as a computer display. Clearly this laptop has not been designed for sitting outside in the sun. It is an ongoing compromise between turning the screen’s power-intensive lighting way up versus saving battery power to be able to work longer. But just when you thought you got it right, the cooling fan starts blowing, which manages to drain the battery within an hour (more on the fan later).

Besides changing the light intensity for the keyboard and screen using F1/F2 and F5/F6, respectively, Mac OS includes a setting that dynamically changes the brightness for you, quickly becoming brighter when exposed to a lot of light. This is very convenient, although it does get annoying in variable lighting conditions. If someone walks past me when I sit behind my computer desk, the light coming in through the kitchen windows briefly gets reduced, causing the screen to darken and brighten up again.

Other

The microphone is an extremely small circle, measuring perhaps only 1/10th of an inch, but it is very sensitive with people complaining about the clock’s ticking when I talk to them on Skype. The laptop speakers are completely hidden underneath the surface. They have the same narrow range as that of other laptop speakers, except their volume beats that of many others. The built-in webcam, too, is very small and hardly noticeable, but providing adequate video feed.

The keyboard types wonderfully. It has just the right amount of counter pressure to help you feel you are pressing the keys with relative ease. Other people whom I have allowed to use my Mac, for instance to check email, all somehow feel obliged to comment on this. Furthermore, the keys are slightly separated from one another with the light grey aluminum unibody being the backdrop. This makes the keyboard area less intense than that of many other laptops, which is usually one large black array. Sadly though, the lovely matte finish of the keyboard quickly disappears, especially for the keys used most frequently. My space bar had become a matte bar with two glossy ovals within a month! Placing a special layer over the keyboard can avert this process. The keyboard layout has been properly thought-through, but I must admit that I had to get used to replacing single-button operators like home, end, page-up and page-down with cmd+left/right and fn+up/down, respectively. The F1 through F12 keys are primarily set to controlling among others backlighting, sound volume and media playback, though it is possible to set it to act like function keys instead. I’d rather not, but that does mean the Apple menu keyboard shortcut is the not very ergonomic “fn+ctrl+F2”.

I started with the one thing that set the Pro apart compared to the MacBook; the multi-touch trackpad. I also wish to finish with that other highly marketed feature; its aluminum unibody. It’s great â€˜cause it’s strong. Then again, while typing, its hard and pretty sharp edge continually cuts into the flesh just below the wrist. It’s not painful, uncomfortable at best, but I expect a callus to form there in time. The metal generally has a nice temperature, but just like with any other laptop it gets hot after a while, most notably on the left side. A very silent cooling fan should bring some relief, but as mentioned above it does more harm than good. It has happened several times now that I glance at my battery status and discover 25% of its charge just vanished.

Conclusion

I bought my Mac at a premium reseller. It still puzzles me why (a) they cannot offer all that the Apple Store has to offer, and (b) why I could not just get Snow Leopard from them rather than through some strange online procedure. As a result, I don’t really see what’s “premium” about their status. Perhaps if I were ever to run into any trouble such as failing hardware, it will pay off. But for now I think I might as well have got it from Apple straight away.

I study Cognitive Ergonomics and I loathe bad design. My parents made the mistake of buying a Samsung TV as it was offered for about half the price of a Philips TV. When I’m with them, I always get into fights with the remote, with its on/off button right above the “1” and the ridiculous way one must close teletext. In much the same way, I sometimes fail to see the logic in the design of Windows. For example, try to avoid it from taking some seconds to open the “Programs” menu when all you want is to select some other option in the Start menu.

Philips and Apple both spend a lot of time on research and development to obtain the most optimal user experience attainable, and that costs money. Did Apple’s efforts succeed for this machine? Yes, absolutely. I will have to get to terms with not using it much outside the house; I think AirPort should be more sensitive, and I risk calloused wrists. But that’s all. So no, I have no regrets for paying well over 1000 Euros for “just a laptop”, considering all the features that I dearly appreciate, including this year’s epitome of usability, the multi-touch trackpad. “Beauty” is in the eye of the beholder and the definition of what is “expensive” is a personal matter. I got what I wanted and am happy with what I got. For me, the MacBook Pro 13″ is an ideal computer.

Apple has had the metallic look for a while My 2001 TI Powerbook, generally looked like this too. Basically Sony stole it from apple. However it is one of those don’t mess with a good idea design. Much like the ThinkPad (an other good design) that looks similar for many many years. With only minor changes in each version allowing for a more dramatic difference if you compare it over a long time.

But I currently have a 3 year old MacBook Pro and it still look like new. You would only know that it is an old model if you know all the changes in the macs. But for the people who are not into macs and see my laptop even compared to their new PC laptops they think I am running a newer system. Granted there are some signs of age if you look very carfuly. There is some pitting where I always rest my hand in the metal. But for the most part it still looks like a new compter.

Apple has had the metallic look for a while My 2001 TI Powerbook, generally looked like this too. Basically Sony stole it from apple.

With one-button-mousers, the one thing that can be relied upon is their thorough sense of design history. Once a person becomes a Mac user, he/she is instantly transformed into an industrial design expert.

Now, your typical, uninformed, non-Mac user would think that this 1997, metallic-bodied Sony laptop would predate the 2001 Mac TI Powerbook by four years. But no, it takes the expertise of Apple users to point at that Sony actually copied the metallic look from Apple.

Only the incredible genius of Steve Jobs and his design team is capable of applying such an unobvious concept as “brushed metal” to computer laptops.

Even though the 1997 Sony Magnesium laptop had a 4-panel body, that doesn’t make it comparable to a 4-panel Mac “unibody.” The “unibody” concept was totally conceived by by Apple alone, despite the fact that the term was a common automobile marketing catchword in the 1960s (to describe welded construction).

Another important plus of Apple is that they “popularize” things. Sony sold quite a few of those early metallic laptops, but Apple “popularized” the metallic laptop, so Apple is better.

By the way, did you know that Steve Jobs invented wearing a baseball cap backwards and that he also invented carrying a backpack by only one strap? He’s so amazing!

Possibly, but Apple certainly wasn’t the first. I have an old Sharp laptop (Actius A150) with a metal finish that looks very similar to Apple’s more recent “pro” laptops (since the TiBook) – except the Sharp laptop is from ’99, predating the Powerbook G4 by about 2 years.

Anecdotally, the original owner put an Apple sticker on it after the TiBook came out (as a joke) – and the appearance was similar enough that many people thought the Actius was actually a Mac laptop.

Apple is also price gauging people for hard drive upgrades. Upgrading to 320 gigs costs $50 for the MBP and $25 for the XPS. Upgrading to 500 gigs costs $150 for the MPB and $75 for the XPS. And keep in mind that all the MPB drives are slower then the XPS drives.

Solid state drives are also much more expensive for the MBP. 128 gig SSD costs $200 for the XPS and $350 for the MBP. 256 gig SSD costs $400 for the XPS and $800 for the MBP.

Apple is also price gauging people for hard drive upgrades. Upgrading to 320 gigs costs $50 for the MBP and $25 for the XPS. Upgrading to 500 gigs costs $150 for the MPB and $75 for the XPS. And keep in mind that all the MPB drives are slower then the XPS drives.

Solid state drives are also much more expensive for the MBP. 128 gig SSD costs $200 for the XPS and $350 for the MBP. 256 gig SSD costs $400 for the XPS and $800 for the MBP.

The Thinkpads and Sonys are a bit closer when I was shopping for my MacBook and considering a Win PC.

And who buys hard drives and RAM from ANY manufacturer? Unscrew screws. Remove entire bottom plate. There’s the HD. There’s the RAM.

And the $440 over the 4 years I typically keep a machine is well worth it, given the OS and the (in my opinion) superior build quality compared to the Dell. I spend more than that on coffee in a single year. But YMMV.

And who buys hard drives and RAM from ANY manufacturer? Unscrew screws. Remove entire bottom plate. There’s the HD. There’s the RAM.

In the case of RAM at least you are not given all that much of a choice. The 2.26 ghz model lets you choose between 2,4 and 8 gigs, but the 2.53 ghz model only allows you to choose between 4 and 8 gigs. So you are stuck buying overpriced Apple RAM.

For the HD, I agree that pretty much all manufacturers will price gauge you to some extent, but look at the relative amount of price gauging. Apple is charging _twice_ the price for _slower_ drives.

I had multiple motherboard component failures in my old titanium PowerBook; the thing died completely twice in about 18 months.

My mom’s much-more-recent MacBook had a hard-drive failure within a year; her… I think about 6-year-old HP laptop was finally retired last month; it still worked, it was just too old for my brother to run games.

I hate it when people claim Apple hardware is infallible. Maybe my family’s hexed, but we’ve had many, many more problems with the Macs we’ve owned than the HP’s (and self-assembled boxes) that we’ve owned.

And God help you if you didn’t get AppleCare. Out-of-warranty repairs are… not cheap.

However your problems, while unfortunate, are anecdotal. I could counter with the fact that I’m now on my 3rd Apple notebook, have 3 Mac Pro’s in the building, 2 Mac Mini’s, and 5 other Mac notebooks in the company, and none have had any issues at all. Does that mean Macs never break? Of course not.

I do feel they’re built better than HP’s and Dells, and are on par with Thinkpads, having used or supported all of the above for the last 6 or 7 years.

Again, YMMV.

Until Macs start crapping out on me on a relatively continual basis compared to how the Thinkpads are performing, I’m not going to switch back. I don’t really care what random person on the internet experiences in terms of me making a purchasing choice, because I have no idea how the person treats the equipment.

Kinda my point as well: my experiences are the opposite of your experiences, both of which are anecdotal. I’m not trying to use anecdotal evidence to make the claim that all Macs are garbage; I’m using anecdotal evidence to contest the claim that Apple hardware is of higher-quality and is more reliable than that used in the lap-tops produced by other vendors, as was made here:

And the $440 over the 4 years I typically keep a machine is well worth it, given the OS and the (in my opinion) superior build quality compared to the Dell. I spend more than that on coffee in a single year. But YMMV.

It’s great that you’re willing to pay a premium for hardware that, in your experience, has been more reliable; in my experience, Apple’s hardware has consistently been significantly less reliable than HP’s, so my assessment of the return I get from the additional investment is very different. The claim that Macs offer competing value when you consider that their hardware is more durable and will last longer is not necessarily true; there exist a reasonable arguments to the contrary.

Which I guess you tacitly acknowledge with the little YMMV disclaimer, so maybe I’m just being touchy.

Kinda my point as well: my experiences are the opposite of your experiences, both of which are anecdotal. I’m not trying to use anecdotal evidence to make the claim that all Macs are garbage; I’m using anecdotal evidence to contest the claim that Apple hardware is of higher-quality and is more reliable than that used in the lap-tops produced by other vendors, as was made here:

Perhaps you missed the part where I said “in my opinion” as far as the build quality in comparison to HP, Dell, and Lenovo.

This opinion is based upon hundreds of Dell, HP, and Lenovo laptops I’ve dealt with over the years. What is your opinion based on? Yes, both anecdotal of course. However when deciding my purchases as well as those that I’m responsible for (over 1000 users currently), I’ll stick with my personal experience, thanks.

It’s great that you’re willing to pay a premium for hardware that, in your experience, has been more reliable; in my experience, Apple’s hardware has consistently been significantly less reliable than HP’s, so my assessment of the return I get from the additional investment is very different. The claim that Macs offer competing value when you consider that their hardware is more durable and will last longer is not necessarily true; there exist a reasonable arguments to the contrary.

Which I guess you tacitly acknowledge with the little YMMV disclaimer, so maybe I’m just being touchy.

Yeah, well, this is the internet, where people have opinions, mine being that compared to HP and Dell, Apple is better. Compared to Lenovo, they’re on par. Service with Apple is superior to HP in every shape and form. HP has got to be the most disappointing product I’ve ever dealt with, construction and service.

I know that we are both just stating opinions. That was my point. I am sick of Apple fans claiming the Macs are infallible, or just “a hell of a lot better.” So all I was ever doing was pointing out that other people have had different experiences, and that there are other equally reasonable opinions. You’re the one who kindly pointed out to me that my experiences where anecdotal, as tho that was either A) something I didn’t already know, or B) something that was not true of your own statements!

I know that we are both just stating opinions. That was my point. I am sick of Apple fans claiming the Macs are infallible, or just “a hell of a lot better.” So all I was ever doing was pointing out that other people have had different experiences, and that there are other equally reasonable opinions. You’re the one who kindly pointed out to me that my experiences where anecdotal, as tho that was either A) something I didn’t already know, or B) something that was not true of your own statements!

Not at all. You’re misinterpreting me. I know all my posts are anecdotal. It’s pretty hard to get scientific about this kind of stuff, even stuff as drastic as the XBox 360 failures (55% by some accounts, but only 29% by others).

A fact is a pragmatic truth, a statement that can, at least in theory, be checked and confirmed. Facts are often contrasted with opinions and beliefs, statements which are held to be true, but are not amenable to pragmatic confirmation.[1][2

Retarded for calling you out as the troll you are? Er, okay. I’d vote you down again if I could. You’re not exactly hurting my feelings, as clearly you’re completely ignorant anyway, however I do feel people like yourself should be banned, as you contribute nothing to this site but ridiculous posts, opinions without basis, and general trolling.

Over-priced Apple ram? It’s standard DDR3 sodimms in that thing. Macs haven’t used special ram for a very long time now, even my PPC iBook used standard pc2100 sodimm. Don’t pay Apple’s prices for ram, buy whatever brand of ram you want so long as it’s the right speed and sodimm chips. Remember how everyone keeps saying Macs are standard PCs with a different case and EFI? Well, that’s true for the ram too.

True, simply for the hardware, you could argue Macs are overpriced. But the point is, I’m not buying only the hardware, I’m buying the user experience and the customer support as well. Taken as a package, I’ve found the Mac experience well worth the price premium. YMMV.

I was a Mac user for many years before switching to Linux (yes we do exist). But my wife has gotten heavily into digital scrapbooking, and therefore Photoshop. It was crushing her Windows machine. I talked her into a 13″ Macbook Pro and it is a thing of beauty. They’ve brought the machine down to the bare essentials. Some people think it’s stark, but I think it gets the design out of your way. I inherited her old Vaio sz-140, and it’s a very nice laptop, but looks like a wildebeest next to a gazelle. I got lucky with a student discount and a free ipod touch after rebate, so it was also quite a deal.

She still complains every time she has to learn the Mac way to do something she knew how to do differently in Windows, but that’s winding down. I keep reminding her that learning Vista is nobody’s idea of a breeze, either. What she doesn’t notice as much is there’s no hinkiness in the bluetooth mouse connection, plugging in the extra monitor is easier and so on. Soon she’ll never look back.

I too was a Mac user for many years before switching to Linux. Well, to Windows first, and then to Linux. This was an interesting article. It could have been about almost any consumer appliance. What seems to have been important were tiny little things, which I probably wouldn’t even notice – the color of a small light for instance, whether the optical drive has a tray. The feel of the trackpad. I moved partly because of freedom, and because of an increasing distaste for consumer designer brand marketing, which I felt had infiltrated and degraded Apple product design.

The point of view that values and is prepared to pay a premium for this stuff is understandable and its reasonably common feeling about what is value for money, so no criticism there. But it is very, very niche. The people that I deal with, the idea of spending an extra 200 euros to get a better feel on the trackpad, it would simply seem obscene. 200 euros is what they expect to spend on the whole computer, because it is money taken away from essentials.

I bought a laptop for a charity recently. They need it to do presentations, and have been increasingly embarassed by not being able to just show up with them on laptop, like everyone else. It took a while for them to see the need to spend the money, and when they did, we bought a used Compaq for well under 200 euros and put Mandriva on it. Well, its a different world.

Its Luis Vuitton bought at Harrods, as opposed to Samsonite. Not that there is anything wrong with it, if that is what you value. But its niche, very niche. In another of the threads on another topic someone referred to the unwashed PC users.

There is a real tension in the Apple world. There is partly a feeling that the rest of you are the great unwashed. And there is also a contradictory feeling that you should all be using Apple stuff because its better. The article brings this tension out. We do not use Apple stuff, we could not justify it, because we have different values altogether. We don’t pay a premium for small design features of cases in anything, vacuum cleaners, ovens, drills. We are in a different world. Not a worse one, and not a less washed one, but different. Being a bit of a puritan, I would say a better, less frivolous, more responsible, freer one.

Won’t disagree about the niche, though I doubt my niche is the same as most. I got my Mac for OS X, and while I love the UNIX underpinnings and all the technologies in it, my real niche is that OS X is the most accessible OS on the planet without doubt, both in its keyboard navigation and in its built-in access technologies. There ya go, a niche you hadn’t thought of.

It is a very different set of circumstances you describe. A group or organization buying a laptop for a specific purpose is quite different than an individual buying his main machine. To me, design makes a huge difference, especially in my tools. If you only drag out the laptop to do presentations, who cares as long as it works? If you’re on the machine 8 – 10 hours a day, it’s a different thing. Before I inherited my wife’s old Sony I used an Averatec that was a perfectly fine machine, but annoying nonetheless. It was the little things: the design of the power connector, the keyboard, the hinges, and so on. All things being equal, I buy utilitarian things, but I spend extra on certain things because they matter more. For example, on an average weekend day my clothes might have cost me $25 or less, total, because I don’t buy casual clothes until they’re on super-special clearance. But my shoes will normally cost me 2 or 3 or 4 times as much, because my shoes matter. And not only for comfort, but for health. One of the nice things about working your way into a little extra money is the ability to do those kinds of things, to buy the nicer shoes and — eventually — the nicer laptop. Nothing wrong with that, and I’m sure there are areas in which everyone splurges a little. It’s just on what’s important to them.

I lightly touched the “tension” subject in this review and referred to an article that goes more in-depth, but somehow the hyperlinks behind the text have gotten lost along the way. Thom wrote an article on the “tension” a few years back (see link #4) which is still an interesting read. Here are the links:

Though I like my white macbook case, I think the important thing there is what makes a mac to be a mac: the OS; and I am not talking about its beautiful eye candy neither: I am talking about its construction: built on top of a Microkernel, allowing me doing unix stuff, allowing me to create nice things on top of the beautiful Cocoa framework and all such stuff: OpenCL, GCD and all the Quartz stuff are amazing technologies: Such things are the important things to me….

You’re absolutely right about the software part. Like I said, I bought it for Mac OS and was apparently so lucky to get the sleek metal casing. I was actually very tempted to address some integration with OSX, but I chose to draw the line with hardware alone.

To name an example, what I find very impressive is that if you let the battery get completely drained (ignoring the reserve power notice), OSX preserves your system’s state. Even unsaved games like OpenTTD are preserved.

As you mention the technical aspect of OSX which – I concur – are amazing (the UNIX base is a really great advantage), Apple is also being very generous to developers in offering the free Xcode suite with a debugger that actually speaks human language and (NeXT’s) Interface Builder. These are great tools, making development on this platform just so… comfortable.

i would disagree, i would say that the combination of hardware, software and service which makes a mac a mac.

I own an 07 iMac, an 05 Powerbook 15″ and a white macbook from 06. The white macbook was upgraded from it’s base spec to 2GB RAM and a 320GB HDD.

The white macbook i use everyday at work and at home, it’s used for a variety of tasks from photos, video to email, surfing to watching and listening to media. Like i said since i purchased it in oct 2006 i have used it everyday.

The hardware i think is very good, the laptop is small but not too small (i used to use a Dell x1 but it was far to small to be handy). I think the 13.3″ screen is big enough for good use whilst not making the laptop too bulky. I like that it has a magnetic lid with no catches, that the trackpad is nice and large (i find windows laptops trackpads far too small) The small about of gestures is nice (two finger scrolling) The port layout is good on the left hand side of the laptop. The speaker design i think is very clever, the speakers are on the back of the base part of the laptop, with the sound being bounced off the screen, i find the speakers under windows laptops very muffled in many cases. I like the magsafe connector as it stops the laptop being dragged via clumsy colleagues.

The software is really good, i won’t go into too much detail because you’ve written the same reasons i love Mac OSX.

The final is service, which i think is overlooked. My white macbook’s charger stopped working. I made an appointment at a Apple Genius bar in Cambridge (UK), which was very easy to use via their web site. I went into the store and was booked in by a friendly face, at the correct time my name was called up and i went up to the bar. I explained what had happened and the apple genius done some quick tests and said yep your charger is broken, he said that apple was aware of this and promptly replaced it free of charge. He also noticed a hair line crack in the case which he told me is also something apple was aware of and would fix free of charge, he then proceeded to tell me that the part was in stock and could be replaced within the hour. So after an hour i left with a new charger, new palm rest, new keyboard and new trackpad without it costing me a penny, with a three year old laptop which was out of warranty.

It’s great to see that I’m not the only one admiring the current Philips consumer products – Ambilight TVs, Espresso machines, “Living Colors” lamps etc. These look very well designed and seem to be of high quality. Seems they really went from “Let’s make things better” (a Philips slogan from some years ago) to “Let’s make better things” ;-).

Secondly, a basic lesson in common punctuation. I’m using a semicolon, making this a compound sentence where the reader should distinguish the part about “Windows and Linux” from the part about “Haiku and Chrome”. So I’m not saying Linux is premature (I dare not!), Google Chrome certainly is.

For the last three months I’ve been here on planet Earth: that cloud system you are talking is still unreleased, so I assumed one can’t define such a product an operative system “still not mature”.

About the basic lesson.. thank you, but I don’t need it even if my English is very raw: if you exclude Linux because you don’t want to use it, why after few words do you talk about an OS based on Linux? This doesn’t make much sense to me, even if you used a semicolon

On your last sentence: you are on the way to become a beos&apple-fan-boy eheh

Yes, I can understand how the sentence comes across a bit strange in dismissing Linux and considering Chrome OS, but here’s the reason:

In this review I really wanted to avoid a thorough “why not Linux” discussion. In short, the versions of Linux I tried I did not like, the ones I’ve seen but have not tried myself were too much based Windows for my taste. And yes, I’m an eye-candy type of person, that is why my field of profession is “cognitive ergonomics” (or “human factors” as it is called in the U.S.). That’s why I’d prefer a Phllips TV and a Nokia telephone.

Google understands the concept of eye-candy (or rather: usability testing), and that along with their “cloud” philosophy is something I really see a future in. I *could* have waited for the Chrome OS, and even though Google’s first releases are usually very good, I wasn’t betting my money on it.

I do NOT own an iPhone or iPod, nor do I want any. If I switch to smartphones, I’d be looking for a phone with Chrome OS. For now, I’m perfectly happy with a simple Nokia that I selected on its 1.5 week battery duration (I always forget to recharge), and an ancient 512 MB Packard Bell FunKey MP3 player.

Thank you too for your reply. I appreciate your explanation, and at this point I’m sorry for calling you “apple-fan-boy”. To simplify things I was put in a sort of bad mood after reading “no linux, always wanted mac” without any further details. Besides of that I’m not used to talk about rumors (this is what I consider Google Chrome OS now), that’s the reason of my ironic sentence.

I’m really tired of people not using free operative systems only because, even if they don’t know anything about MacOSX, Apple is known to be “cool” to their eyes… but well, I won’t go on whining, it’s obviously not your case and it’s OT, I just wanted to tell you this “emotive background” under my previous posts

Haha, so I guess I really touched a nerve with you, huh? 😉 I think in retrospect I ought to have phrased the bit about Linux a bit better considering this *is* OSNews (of sll websites!). I never intended to denigrate/stigmatize/denounce Linux. I have the same sensitivity when it comes to BeOS/Zeta/Haiku, so I know where you’re coming from (in fact, as I called myself a BeOS fanboy, so reasoning in that line, may I consider you a Linux fanboy?).

Eddy seems ok with your comments, but why not show a little graciousness when your post is shown to be based on misunderstanding of grammar and lack of awareness of the Chrome OS, instead of continuing with playground fanboy name-calling?

Yes, it may seem a largely one-sided article, but there’s very little to complain about on the MacBook Pro – you know the price and the styling when you go to the shop. It’s a great little laptop whatever OS you choose to run on it.

[…] but why not show a little graciousness when your post is shown to be based on misunderstanding of grammar and lack of awareness of the Chrome OS, instead of continuing with playground fanboy name-calling?

I *did* do my utmost to catch all the downsides though 😉 But indeed, coming up with other improvements is tough. As someone else already pointed out, these laptops have a history of minor changes accumulating to a lot of goodies. The version I have even hardly differs from the late 2008 series, so either the design team must either be out of options or it is working on radical new stuff.

As for the tone of the original post – I’d rather figure out where the problem lies, rather than than fueling a flame thread. It’s not that I’m necessarily “okay” with it, but I see merit in remaining reasonable (we all have our bad days, right? some of my posts have been voted down too).

I have the same MBP. Indeed the hardware is very well put together and works seamlessly with the native MACOSX.

However I bought it mostly with Linux use in mind. I thought that because it is made with standard Intel & Nvidia chips it would work as good as any other laptop. Unfortunately there are SERIOUS problems with stability and heating. I was hopping that these problems would be fixed with the upcoming distributions but it seems that even ubuntu 9.10 beta has the same problems.

I am patiently waiting for the final 9.10 to come out. If it still doesn’t work, I am selling the Mac.

Or file those bugs, vote for them, blog about it, generally contribute or if you can’t contribute– kick up a stink.

If no company is directly supporting your hardware, then it’s up to someone else’s company, or contributors to solve your problem. Selling the MacBook doesn’t help you, and certainly doesn’t help any other MacBook users in your situation.

The best thing you can do is make it your personal mission to get your hardware supported. If you can’t code you can campaign. E-mail the necessary kernel devs to ask, write blog posts about the issues, file bugs — if they’re already filed, vote for them, blog them, contact the devs. Do _something_.

–Otherwise you’ll be going from one machine to another never having a 100% experience and the OS should not dictate the hardware you want to use.

If you value running Linux on the MacBook more than OS X and more than monetary value of the machine then clearly you are a man of principles, and this is the opportunity to put those principles into action. Thousands of Linux users are relying on you.

This is truly a laptop I would want to have. Too bad I simply don’t have the money. It looks sturdy, much more so than the plastic crap they used to make in this price range (and I can know, I owned several of them).

I enjoyed he review. There’s just one thing: The 3,5mm audio connector for input and output. Two connectors would have been to expensive? And switching from internal speakers to headphones require, erm, software (instead of a little metal switch worth less than a cent)? I never figured out how to use this for a setting that, let’s say, includes a microphone or a keyboard as input, as well as headphones or an external amplifier as output – at the same time.

This is truly a laptop I would want to have. Too bad I simply don’t have the money.

Would be worth saving some money, but when you finally can afford it, you don’t want it anymore because it’s “outdated” and you would not wanted to have it as a present because people could see you with such an “old” laptop? 🙂

It looks sturdy, much more so than the plastic crap they used to make in this price range (and I can know, I owned several of them).

In comparison to my several more or less old laptops, my iBook (mind how “old” it must be today) still is in best condition, allthough heavily used. But people want cheap plactic crap, so they get it.

I enjoyed he review. There’s just one thing: The 3,5mm audio connector for input and output. Two connectors would have been to expensive?

Why put more than is needed?

And switching from internal speakers to headphones require, erm, software (instead of a little metal switch worth less than a cent)?

Switches tend to wear off and add weight.

Would be worth saving some money, but when you finally can afford it, you don’t want it anymore because it’s “outdated” and you would not wanted to have it as a present because people could see you with such an “old” laptop? 🙂

What’s the problem with people seeing you with old stuff? Why people care much about what others think? If that’s all you care about, you’ll never stop buying new stuff, even when old stuff works fine. You are hooked forever.

I enjoyed he review. There’s just one thing: The 3,5mm audio connector for input and output. Two connectors would have been to expensive?

Why put more than is needed?

I just illustrated a setting where two are needed. Another example would be the use for amateur radio, let’s say for PR, SSTV or FAX mode, again you need both at the same time. The same is true for settings where you have an audio source (input) and want to use headphones (output).

Switches tend to wear off and add weight.

The springs that provide the contact inside the connector suffer from the same problem, which leads to defective contacts (increased resistance, capacitor effects, “crunching” and finally contact loss) even if the plug is in. Furthermore, the switching element will weight… 0.1 gram maximum.

What’s the problem with people seeing you with old stuff?

Good question. An answer would lead to further insight why people buy new cars on credit base (instead of saving money for some time), just to impress the neighbor. 🙂

Why people care much about what others think? If that’s all you care about, you’ll never stop buying new stuff, even when old stuff works fine. You are hooked forever.

Would be worth saving some money, but when you finally can afford it, you don’t want it anymore because it’s “outdated”

Heh. “Being released to the public is what makes technology obsolete in the first place. The only way to stay ahead of the curve is to invest in technology that doesn’t exist – and hopefully never will, like the iPlunger or the NintenDonut.”

and you would not wanted to have it as a present because people could see you with such an “old” laptop? 🙂

I guess that’s one of the joys of getting old: my desire to have the latest-and-greatest has faded after realizing that you can find ridiculously good deals on factory refurb’d laptops that were top-of-the line a year or two back.

The most joyful thing when you get old is that you yawn about nearly everything that advertisement tries to sell you as “newest mind-breaking bleeding edge invention of all times” because you know that it has already been there for decades. 🙂

my desire to have the latest-and-greatest has faded after realizing that you can find ridiculously good deals on factory refurb’d laptops that were top-of-the line a year or two back.

I see the same: Instead of having “the best” for a very short time, I want to have something that is “really good” for a much longer period of time, saving me trouble with constand upgrading and getting it to work properly. And because the worst solution always seems to sell best, something “extra-ordinary” is often a good choice (e. g. office-class printer at home, even if it’s two years old).

The most joyful thing when you get old is that you yawn about nearly everything that advertisement tries to sell you as “newest mind-breaking bleeding edge invention of all times” because you know that it has already been there for decades. 🙂

Know what you mean – the first time I used Facebook, my reaction was along the lines of “hey, it’s usenet with a buddy list.”

I see the same: Instead of having “the best” for a very short time, I want to have something that is “really good” for a much longer period of time, saving me trouble with constand upgrading and getting it to work properly. And because the worst solution always seems to sell best, something “extra-ordinary” is often a good choice (e. g. office-class printer at home, even if it’s two years old).

Oh definitely, I’m a big fan of getting server/pro-class hardware that’s a few years old. The funny thing is that I’m starting to have more confidence in used hardware, especially hard drives – most drive failures I’ve had were after a week or two of use, or right out of the box. The reasoning of “it’s worked without problem for a while now, so it will probably continue to work” seems to hold true more often than “it’s new, so it should last for a while.”

There’s just one thing: The 3,5mm audio connector for input and output. Two connectors would have been to expensive?

I think for the 13″ model, they deliberately chose to keep things “simple”. I actually find an “in and out” port pretty impressive. I understand your problem though; the lack of in *and* out is indeed a downside if you would be connecting both a keyboard and headphones over this jack. If I make crude recordings over a keyboard I run into the very same issue; playback over headphones is just not possible. But if you really MUST have this kind of performance, you can do either of three things:

1. Buy a 15″ or 17″ version of this MacBook. These do have separate ports for in and out.

2. Buy headphones that you connect over USB.

3. Buy an audio interface that you connect over USB or Firewire (I have my eyes set on this baby: http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FireWireSolo.html ). Like I said, I make *crude* keyboard recordings through this port; completely unfiltered and unequalized – not the real deal.

Would be worth saving some money, but when you finally can afford it, you don’t want it anymore because it’s “outdated”

The advantage of buying an outdated model is that you can knock about 100 Euros off the price. Around 1999 I had the opportunity to mess around a little with a PowerBook G3 and LOVED its all-black design. Like I wrote in my review, I simply needed a laptop. In all honesty, I first wanted to buy a second-hand model of the PB! But a relative insisted on me buying a new one and managed to convince me. So honestly, I didn’t (and still don’t) even care about how it looks to have an ancient (10+ yrs) computer; price was my main criterium (which I really did have to overcome). For me the benefit lies in being able to staying up to date with everything because all the hardware is still new.

It’s three months I own a MacBook Unibody, and I agree on everything you said (where applicable, mine isn’t a Pro – got it with 20% discount as it was just discontinued). It’s a great machine for everything, including gaming while you’re not at home: not many 13″ machines out there come with a real GPU.

Too bad I can’t use it as much as I want, because on the job I have to use a Toshiba that seems to have been designed with the precise intention of being ugly and umcomfortable. And I just bought a netbook for the train rides: carrying around a 2 kg, 1000 â‚¬ Mac to use it only for less than one hour a day isn’t exactly a good idea.

Back to the MacBook, one of my favorite features is that the connectors are all on the left, where the cables do not interfere with the mouse, and the optical unit is on the opposite side.

Also I love the optical audio out, I just have to hook it up to my Onkyo amplifier to watch my DVDs with 5.1 sound 🙂

Dell and HP make some very nice hardware nowadays in their pro lines, I’d say on par with what Lenovo offers on the newest thinkpads.

Btw, Macs aren’t that pricey, and they are good laptops. I’d recommend it to alot of people for their endurance and ease of use (and eye candy). But I don’t like OSX so I don’t think I’d every buy one for my personal use.

I am considering selling my MBA 1.6 ghz and 120 gig HD, and getting a MBP 13 because of the additional ports and CPU speed etc. I do not travel with it, just back and forth to work. At work I have to use a thinkpad but use the Mac for checking emails and such at work. At home I built a Hackintosh PC.

I think I can help you with this. Before I bought this type, I’ve spent several hours just searching for the answer “is the 13.3 inch version good enough or do I require the 15.4 inch version”.

My basic conclusion was: 13″ is the ideal type for me, among others because it has better portability. Most advices did include the clause “but make sure you do get 4 GB of RAM in stead of 2 GB.

You mention that you are not intending to take it on the road much. In that case, you may like the 15″ model to suit your needs better. It is larger (duh) and weighs a pound extra; the basic model has 4 GB RAM and 250 GB HD on default (13″ default is 2 / 160), and line in and out are separate ports. The only downside I’ve read of is that dirt tends to accumulate in the speaker grille (absent on the 13”), but other than that most people label it as “perfect”.

Yea, 13″ is pretty much ideal for me too. I’ve always found 15″ to be too big for traveling, and in reasent years I’ve been using external monitors when not on the road anyway.

The only thing that bugs me about these Macs, though, is that 14″ would easily fit in the same form factor. Alternatively, the unit could be even smaller without sacrificing screen nor keyboard size.

Also, it would be nice if higher DPI rates were possible. In my drawer I have an old 8.9″ Lifebook P1120, which has a 1024×600 resolution. Compare this to normal laptops and you see that the Lifbook has a really dense screen, with about 20 DPI more than the 13.3″ MacBook.

I just bought a MBP 13″ last month. This happened to coincide with the death of my PMac G5 motherboard, (which btw is happening to many others at this time). I like the thing but there is one problem. Despite Apple’s published technical specs that claim it will drive a monitor at 2560×1600, it will not drive my 22″ vga monitor any higher than 1600×1200 @65hz. Even Nvidia states that the built in card supports vga up to 2048×1536.

So I called Apple support. The first person I talked to insisted that I upgrade the software on my analog monitor. Seeing I wasn’t getting anywhere they gave someone at the 2nd level support. After explaining the situation to this individual several times he told me he would check with the engineers and call me back.

That review is pretty okay. It’s not written in a style I like (as I prefer the more factual reviews), but all information I expect from a review is there. So I’ll criticise just some minor points.

First of all, about the fan. Approximately in the middle of the second page, you write “more on the fan later” – but further down, you only mention it again in one sentence (where it references back). The “more” I expected is missing. Like a paragraph about what causes the problem, if/how you got rid of it, something like that.

And secondly, about your rant about Samsung/Windows/Philips/Apple at the end. This finger-pointing adds nothing to your review (supports neither your arguments nor your opinion). Also, why would I care about them, when reading about a MacBook?

So, like I said, except from these little things your review is just fine.

Thanks, very perceptive! The writing style I can accept. It depends on the audience you have in mind. I wrote this piece with all those my friends and acquaintances in mind who wonder out loud why on Earth I would buy a Mac.

My motives behind the conclusion are:

(a) being critical about a few things (not solely happy-clappy);

(b) clarifying why (and to what extent) I value design and how this machine compares to others;

(c) tying up the loose ends, converging all the benefits of this machine by involving the R&D.

As for the fan, the pointing ahead was because I did not want to leave the fan unmentioned at the “outdoor usage” of this computer, but I also really wanted to link the fan performance to the (closed) unibody casing.

In the “later” bit, I said the following things about the fan:

– it is very silent (you cannot hear it when it starts cooling faster)

– its effects are hardly noticeable (in that the metal gets hot; I’m sure it prevents it from getting red hot);

– it drains the battery at about 1% per minute.

I might have added:

– a proper solution: there is no grille for it (a central cause); one should be added;

– the possibility to somewhat control it yourself using smcFanControl.

As for the solution:

– I have none. Or at least, not really, but they’re just too lame to I have two empty drinks cartons filled with water that I shove under it when it gets hot (laugh if you want). I found that using books to create some space underneath does not avail to much.

If anybody else did come up with a genial solution for the heat problem, please do share.

I just bought the 13″ MacBook Pro. I have never been so pleased with a laptop (it replaces a Toshiba Sat. model).

It is small but big enough to be comfortable.

It can fit on the tray tables of both the train I have to take AND a coach seat on American Airlines.

It is more than powerful enough and handles everything I throw at it.

I am getting about 7 hours of battery life (no PC laptop I looked at can even come close to that) and that is me using it. No lie there-how much power do you use processing Excel and Word docs?

It is super thin comparatively and about 2-3 lbs lighter. Big deal in my backpack.

You know, those who say the MacBook Pro is more expensive to buy than a comparable Dell, HP or “pick your manufacturer” by about $300-400. Let me tell you why that is okay–and it just boils down to one feature in my mind: MagSafe Power Adapter. Can’t say enough good things there. Worth the extra couple hundred bucks. I have had to have that Toshbia repaired once already at a cost of $500 plus the down time because of the power nibble thing busted off the board adn it still takes some fiddling to get it to work right. I invite you to give your laptop the “trip over the cord” test and see what comes off the table–your book or just your power cord?

The ports are positioned in the right places (I hated reaching to the back to plug in an ethernet cord on the Toshiba) and the DVD on the right is perfect.

Can we say the support is excellent? Had an AirPort issue–no hold time, initial guy could not solve so transferred me to the AirPort specialist, again no hold time other than the connection. Had me fixed and off the phone in 15 minutes (problem in a router setting). I cannot tell you how bad the support was at both Toshiba and Dell (when I got a native English speaker) was.

Downside: the glass screen. I get fingerprints on it so I have to clean it more often from an asthetic point of view. The light up keyboard is a little too sensative–me on the dining room table with a shades-drawn window right behind me–keyboard lights up. Bend to the left for the glass of tea and it lights off-very little light change but enough to trigger.

So there you go: I am not an Apple fan boi, nor a Windows one. Linux is not my cup of tea and Be was not as user friendly as I would have preferred. I have both Windows machines and Mac machines, and run both Windows and Mac OSX on the MacBook Pro. I just want a great user experience with machines that have “simple intelligent design” and not “look at how cool I am over here” design. For my asthetics–that was the MacBookPro.